Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Social Sciences and Educational Development (ICOSSED 2024)

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A Comparative Study on Two Chinese University Graduates’ Investment in English Language Learning

Authors
Yiting Wang1, *
1NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, New York, 10012, USA
*Corresponding author. Email: yiting_wang1998@163.com
Corresponding Author
Yiting Wang
Available Online 28 March 2025.
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-382-5_88How to use a DOI?
Keywords
The investment model; English investment; Capital-centric ELT; Narrative study
Abstract

After China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, many Chinese realize that the English language, as a lingua franca, is an easy entrance to the international commercial world. Soon, the English fever is prevalent across China and many people invest in the English language, expecting to join the worldwide capital framework. However, there is a dearth of study on what impact English investment brings to people from different social classes. This article proposes to conduct qualitative research with the method of narrative study on the English investment of two interviewees who belong to different social classes. With Darvin and Norton’s investment model, the identity, capital and ideology the interviewees present during the semi-structured interview are evaluated through the narrative study. The result shows that the ideology creates various imagined identities through the capital-centric English language teaching (ELT) system to control learners’ agency.

Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Social Sciences and Educational Development (ICOSSED 2024)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
28 March 2025
ISBN
978-2-38476-382-5
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-382-5_88How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Yiting Wang
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/03/28
TI  - A Comparative Study on Two Chinese University Graduates’ Investment in English Language Learning
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Social Sciences and Educational Development (ICOSSED 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 921
EP  - 934
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-382-5_88
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-382-5_88
ID  - Wang2025
ER  -